Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland eBook

gorgeous carpet of the huge couched blue gentian (G.
acaulis, Fr. Gentiane sans tige), with
smaller patterns put in by the dazzling blue of the
delicate little flower of the same species (G. verna
); while the white blossoms of the grass of Parnassus,
and the frailer white of the dryade a huit petales,
and the modest waxen flowers of the Azalea procumbens
and the airelle ponctuee (Vaccineum vitis
idaea), tempered and set off the prevailing blue.
There were groves, too, rather lower down, of Alpine
roses (the first I had come across that year), not
the fringed or the green-backed species which botanists
love best, but the honest old rust-backed rhododendron,
which every Swiss traveller has been pestered with
in places where the children are one short step above
mere mendicity, but, equally, which every Swiss traveller
hails with Medean delight when he comes upon it on
the mountain-side. We were now, too, in the neighbourhood
of the first created Alpen rose. The story is,
that a young peasant, who had climbed the precipices
behind Oberhausen for rock-flowrets, as the price
of some maiden’s love, fell at the moment when
he had secured the flowers, and was killed. From
his blood the true Alpen rose sprang, and took its
colour.

We were now passing along the summit of one of the
lower spurs of the Rothhorn range, and making for
the peak of the Ralligflue, which lay considerably
below us. In descending near the line of crest,
we found a large number of very deep fissures, narrow
and black, some of them extending to a great distance
across the face of the hill; sometimes they appeared
as mere holes, down which we despatched stones, sometimes
as unpleasant crevasses almost hidden by flowers and
the shrubs of rhododendron. In many of these
we dimly discovered accumulated snow at the bottom,
and we observed that the Alpine roses which overhung
the snow-holes were by far the deepest coloured and
most beautiful we could find.

To reach the Ralligflue, we had to cross a smooth
green lawn completely covered with the sweet vanilla
orchis (O. nigra), which perfumed the air almost
too powerfully. No one can ever fully appreciate
the grandeur of the lion-like Niesen till he has seen
it from this verdant little paradise, on the slope
near the Bergli Chalet, with a diminutive limpid lake
in the meadow at his feet, and the blue lake of Thun
below. The Kanderthal and the Simmenthal lie
exposed from their entrance at the foot of the Niesen;
and when the winding Kanderthal is lost, the Adelbodenthal
takes up the telescope, and guides the eye to the parent
glaciers. This view I was fortunately able to
enjoy rather longer than that from the mouth of the
Schafloch; for we had made such rapid way, that Christian
found there was time for a meal of milk in the chalet,
and meanwhile left me lying in perfect luxury on the
sweet grass.

From the Ralligflue a long and remarkably steep zigzag
leads to the lower ground, and down this Christian
ran at full speed, jodeling in a most trying manner;
indeed, at one of the sudden turns of the path he
went off triumphantly into a falsetto so unearthly,
that he lost his legs, and landed in a promiscuous
sort of way on a lower part of the zigzag, after which
he was slower and less vocal.